The case against Nuon Chea was plagued by political interference, undermined by biased and incompetent judges and riddled with legal and factual errors, according to the Khmer Rouge leader’s full appeal against a life sentence for crimes against humanity in August.
Released publicly yesterday, the 270-page document advances in detail 223 grounds for appeal against the verdict in Case 002/01, which held Chea and Khieu Samphan responsible for crimes committed following the Khmer Rouge’s capturing of Phnom Penh in 1975.
Chea’s lawyers take aim at the government’s “blatant and overt” interference in the trial to protect “the senior military officers who implemented the [Khmer Rouge’s] policies and today remain the highest ranking members of government”.
They assert the Cambodian government blocked access to witnesses and scuttled investigations as part of “an irrefutable pattern of conduct designed to diminish responsibility of former CPK officials such as [President of the National Assembly] Heng Samrin and [Prime Minister] Hun Sen at Nuon Chea’s expense”.
The defence calls for Samrin, Senator Ouk Bunchhoen and a third figure, whose name is redacted, to be summoned to testify as well as journalist Thet Sambath and filmmaker Rob Lemkin, who together investigated the genocide for the film Enemies of the People.
Chea’s team also accuses the judges of “deep bias”, calling their ruling “a post facto rationalisation of a long-held belief that the accused are morally repugnant and deserving of the harshest punishment”.
Thursday, January 1, 2015
Nuon Chea team
The case against Nuon Chea was plagued by political interference, undermined by biased and incompetent judges and riddled with legal and factual errors, according to the Khmer Rouge leader’s full appeal against a life sentence for crimes against humanity in August.
Released publicly yesterday, the 270-page document advances in detail 223 grounds for appeal against the verdict in Case 002/01, which held Chea and Khieu Samphan responsible for crimes committed following the Khmer Rouge’s capturing of Phnom Penh in 1975.
Chea’s lawyers take aim at the government’s “blatant and overt” interference in the trial to protect “the senior military officers who implemented the [Khmer Rouge’s] policies and today remain the highest ranking members of government”.
They assert the Cambodian government blocked access to witnesses and scuttled investigations as part of “an irrefutable pattern of conduct designed to diminish responsibility of former CPK officials such as [President of the National Assembly] Heng Samrin and [Prime Minister] Hun Sen at Nuon Chea’s expense”.
The defence calls for Samrin, Senator Ouk Bunchhoen and a third figure, whose name is redacted, to be summoned to testify as well as journalist Thet Sambath and filmmaker Rob Lemkin, who together investigated the genocide for the film Enemies of the People.
Chea’s team also accuses the judges of “deep bias”, calling their ruling “a post facto rationalisation of a long-held belief that the accused are morally repugnant and deserving of the harshest punishment”.
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